


By Your Side

by PensiveDevil



Category: World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-23
Updated: 2013-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-05 17:52:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1096800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PensiveDevil/pseuds/PensiveDevil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hunter's injury causes Shawn to reflect on their recent past.</p>
            </blockquote>





	By Your Side

 

 

*******January 2007*******

I wasn't there for him last time.  
  
We’d had a falling-out, shortly before Wrestlemania in 2001; a falling-out that was entirely my fault. I’d given in to my demons again--this time backstage at a show, of all places, and my first day back to boot--and sent home when Vince realized I was in no condition to be in front of the TV cameras. They’d had a good storyline planned for me, the first in a long time, and I blew it. And, as I always did back in those dark days, I blamed everybody for it except myself. Even Hunter. No, _especially_ Hunter.  
  
I was so messed up I wasn't even thinking straight. I tracked him down backstage, and laid into him. I called him an ingrate, a no-good son of a bitch, and everything else you can think of. I still remember the pain in those amber eyes. He tried to reason with me, to calm me down, but to no avail. I continued my diatribe, reveling in the fact that by that point a crowd had gathered to witness me tearing into the man who was supposed to be my best friend, and after I ran out of cruel things to say to him, I left.  
  
He tried to call me over the next few days. Left a ton of messages on my answering machine. In my better moments, when my demons didn't have me completely in their clutches, the hurt in his voice was almost too much for me; there were many times when I almost picked up the phone. But I always held back. I wanted to blame him; I still wasn't ready to take it on myself yet.  
  
So, we didn't talk for months. I didn't even watch the shows Monday and Thursday nights, because I didn't want to see him. Didn't want to think about him. I couldn't always help the latter, but I damn sure tried.  
  
And then Kevin called me one morning in May.  
  
"Thought you should know that Hunt got hurt last night. Tore his left quad. He's having surgery today... he'll probably be out for at least six months, maybe more."  
  
"... Oh."  
  
"...'Oh'? Is that all?" I could hear the disbelief and anger in his voice. He knew we weren't talking. He knew it was my fault too. I could tell he was hoping that hearing that Hunter was hurt would push me to finally call him, apologize, and get things back to normal between us.  
  
I was too damned stubborn, though. Too stubborn to call the man who had been one of the closest people in the world to me for the past six years, even now when he was seriously injured.  
  
"Well... what do you want me to do about it?" I asked in that whiny tone that used to drive Kev nuts (and still does).  
  
He hung up a few seconds later.  
  
I never called Hunter--not before the surgery, after it, or during the entire eight months he was in rehab. Not once. We didn't talk again until the spring of 2002, after I had finally started to put my demons behind me.  
  
I’ve always regretted not being there for him then, since we patched things up. Especially when Kevin tore his own quad that summer and had to go through it all himself. Hunter's never shown it or mentioned it, but I know it had to hurt him. God knows he was always there for me when I got hurt. He was _always_ there for me, when absolutely nobody else was.  
  
But we moved on, and spent the next four years working together off and on. Had a truckload of great matches. Traveled all over the world together--just like the old days, when he was a young up-and-comer and I was the world champion. We had fun. We forgot all about that year we had been apart, been out of each others' lives, and just had fun.  
  
Especially this past year, when we resurrected DX. Just the two of us. The old chemistry we’d always had was still there, and then some. Everything felt so perfect.  
  
And then Hunter got hurt again. The same injury--another quad tear--only on the opposite leg. I knew something was wrong as soon as I saw him go down. The look in his eyes was all I needed to see to know it was bad.  
  
It killed me to see him fall apart backstage after the match. "I tore it, Shawn. I know I did, I remember what it felt like the first time... eight more months... God damn it..." I’d rarely seen him so despondent. Knowing as I did now what he had gone through the first time, I couldn't blame him, but I knew he wasn't just upset about having to do the rehab all over again. He didn't want what we were doing to end so suddenly. Didn't want to stop having fun with me. Didn't want to have to miss Wrestlemania and so many other things that had been planned for us for the next few months.  
  
His head was down, eyes downcast, fingers plucking fornlornly at the wrapping over his leg. I bent down beside him, lifted his hand in mine, gave it a tight, comforting squeeze, and leaned my forehead gently against his.  
  
"It'll be alright, Hunt. You can get through this. I know you can. And however long it might take, I know you're gonna come back and be as good as you’ve always been. We'll be together again before you know it."  
  
I kissed him softly on the forehead. Wrapping my arms around him, I hugged him close. He leaned into me, eyes closed, and I held him for a long moment in silence. During that silence, I remembered—remembered how I hadn't been there for him before, when he was hurt like this.  
  
Not this time.  
  
"I'll be by your side every step of the way, Hunter. I'll help you get through this. I promise."  
  
And this time, I _will_ be there.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this several years ago (and just touched it up a bit), days after Hunter's second quad tear (at New Year's Revolution 2007). I couldn't help but wonder what was going on in Shawn's head following Hunter's injury, given the sour state of their relationship at the time of Hunter's first quad tear in May 2001. The two had had a legitimate falling-out earlier in 2001, when Shawn was brought back to have a role in the Hunter/Undertaker feud leading up to Wrestlemania X-7; he showed up hopped-up on pills, and was sent home. Apparently even Hunter admitted to Vince that he was in bad shape, and Shawn took exception to this and tore into Hunter on his way out. They didn't talk for a year; Kevin eventually helped bring about a reconciliation and convinced Shawn to call Hunter, a few months before Shawn's return at the 2002 Summerslam.


End file.
